A Shelbie Update

Yesterday after dinner Shelbie proclaimed, "This is the best day ever! Where's my journal?"
She wrote in her journal that she learned how to "tiye" her shoes, learned all her butterfly words, had ice cream after dinner and held a snake at school.

Earlier Scott said that it was about time she learned how to tie her shoes because he remembers learning to do it when he was about 5 years old. Shelbie has always been so particular about having her shoes fit just right and having the left and right shoe tied precisely the same tightness. So because of this we have always done it for her and/or she has had slip on shoes. So, Scott shows her how to do it and she figured it out after two times. Scott made her practice doing it 3 more times so she got the hang of it. She picked it up so fast and she was so proud to tie her own shoes this morning. (after about 15 minutes, though, and a few minutes before we had to leave to go to school she decided to have me tie them so that they were nice and tight and "the same") She does know how to double-knot them as well and had fun doing that to the bows I tied for her. In fact, she triple-knotted them and thought that was pretty funny.

At school Shelbie has several lists of "sight" or "frequency" words that she must learn. The kindergarten standard is to learn about 50 of them (first half of the turtle word list). She has 3 lists that have 100 words each. All the kindergarten classes at her school have decided to call each list Turtle Words, Fish Words, & Butterfly words. We have worked really hard with her and yesterday she finished learning her Butterfly words. So Shelbie can now successfully read 300 "sight" words (that is she doesn't have to sound them out, just memorizes what they look like). We are so proud of her! At her last conference we decided that we would have a "treat" after she learned each list of words. After the turtle words (easiest words to learn) we went out to dinner and after the Fish words we went to Chuck E. Cheese. Now that she has completed her butterfly words we are going to go to either Adventure City or Legoland...she has yet to decide.

Shelbie currently has 4 loose teeth. Her top right middle tooth is the loosest and will probably come out in a week or so. Or she may just decide to pull it out quickly like she did her first bottom one.

Shelbie loves to sing! She is always singing with her microphone in the house and singing in the car whereever we go and in the shower. She loves singing so much that we enrolled her in OCMCO Sumbeam Chorus. She absolutely loves it and has a great time. She looks forward to it every week. I love it because of the advanced "musicality" (is that a word?). They teach her music theory as well as stage presence and performance behavior.

A week ago Shelbie's cousins were down from Utah and we got to spend a lot of time with them. They had so much fun playing together! They are the same age and get along pretty well. After playing with them one evening Shelbie exclaimed "this is the best day ever!" So she apparently has a favorite phrase she uses when she is so happy and excited about things that have happened.

Shelbie is turning 6 in a little over a week! I can't believe how fast that time has gone since she was just a baby. What a sweet girl she has become. We love her so much.